Month: May 2017

In the American Health Care Act (AHCA), recently passed by the House of Representatives as a replacement for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a key element is restructuring how Medicaid is financed. One effect of this legislation is focusing attention… Read More ›

I spend a lot of time in the northern Catskill Mountains of New York. I’m fortunate that my local hospital, Margaretville Hospital, is in the top 100 “critical access hospitals” ranked by the National Rural Health Association, even though it… Read More ›

There is broad consensus that the quality of care that is delivered in the United States is uneven and too often inadequate. For more than a decade, the approach to remedying deficiencies in health care quality has been through measurement,… Read More ›

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson proposed adding to the Social Security Act a guarantee of basic health services for poor children. He explained to the nation, “The problem is to discover, as early as possible, the ills that handicap our… Read More ›

Among the many confounding aspects of recent health policy debates was how much attention focused on the wrong issues. The conversation devolved into a proxy war over the Affordable Care Act instead of dealing with the deep-rooted flaws in our… Read More ›

Until recently, formulating national strategies to address the epidemic of chronic viral hepatitis was not a priority for most countries. Although Australia and Taiwan led the way years ago, few others initially followed. Now, however, recent calls for action, including… Read More ›